become afraid of all the darkness in my heart
by ChasingPerfectionTomorrow
Summary: Claire likes being in control, which is hardly a secret -she's heard too many interns whispering 'control freak' and 'ice queen' behind her back to live in ignorance. The park's new (glorified) Raptor trainer, however, seems hell-bent on challenging that control whenever possible.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**

So, this was meant to be a oneshot, but I'm about eighteen pages in and I figure I'll make this a three part... thing. Wrote this to explore what makes Claire tick, and to see if I could make Owen and Claire work without the help of a genetically altered killing machine (Not that there won't be some action, because action is fun sometimes, but don't expect a lot of it). Well, I hope people enjoy and reviews are lovely as always. :D

* * *

become afraid of all the darkness in my heart

* * *

Ted Dearing has a drinking problem and everyone knows it.

They (Ted and his small family) live in a small mid-western town- the kind where everyone goes to the high school football games, shops at the locally owned grocery store, and where it's fashionable to show up at the monthly town meetings. But it's not their business, it's not their place to intervene, and they turn a blind eye as his family implodes.

Ted loses his job, his friends, and most of his family shortly after a war that takes place somewhere his two little girls can't pronounce. Someplace that is made up mostly of sand, heat, and broken dreams. A world that has been ravaged by war and human turmoil for thousands of years, for reasons most people have forgotten. Somewhere that takes pieces of a man and buries them deep, so deep he starts looking for them at the bottom of a bottle.

People say Ted was a different man before he put on a uniform and left home- better, smarter, happier, kinder, _more._ Everyone sort talks about him like he's dead, like he has been for a long time.

Claire can only remember the slurring, the yelling through paper thin walls, the broken dishes on dirty floors, and her momma's silent tears. If her father had been anything else, she can't recall.

Ted Dearing is a man on fire with only tequila to put himself out and, eventually, he drowns.

* * *

Claire is a few days shy of seven years old when she wakes up one morning to find her sister staring out their living room window with streaks of moisture on her face. The sun catches them and for a moment, Claire is blinded. She climbs up on the stained sofa in her faded pink pajamas and looks out the window. Their beat up Honda Civic is absent from the drive, old rubber tire tracks the only sign it had ever been there at all.

"Stuff will be better now," Karen says, twelve years old and already world weary, and takes Claire's hand in hers. "I promise."

The house is silent, heavy, and if the world shifts she's too small to feel it.

Life does get better, in some ways.

Their momma manages to tear herself out from under years of guilt, sadness, and loss. She gets another job, and then another, until she's rarely home. Claire and Karen spend a lot of time next door with Mrs. Neal who is old and nice and bakes them cookies. She helps Claire with her homework and lets her play outside for hours and hours. They're good years, simple ones made of green summers, and cozy winters, and if there is a hollow space inside herself, she manages to fill it with her sister's smiles and Mrs. Neal's cooking.

Sometimes their momma has boyfriends- distant men with distant, plastic smiles- but mostly she doesn't. Mostly Sharron Dearing tries to prepare her little girls for a world that isn't fair, a world that lets you down. A world that will demand more of them because of what's under their second-hand dresses than it does from the little boys they sit next to in class.

Her momma teaches Claire to build careful walls around her heart and her daddy teaches her that nothing and no one is forever.

* * *

She meets Brian her sophomore year of college.

He takes her virginity and whatever lingering doubts she still has about the nature of men and love. He tells her he loves her, that she's beautiful and brilliant, but there is an edge to his words, a grimace in his smiles. She's top of their class and he spends a lot of time trying to not-so-subtly diminish her and everything she wants. He treats her like a pretty ornament with nothing between her ears but glitter and air. It almost works. He almost manages to claw down her defenses and work his way down to where her insecurities lay aching and raw, but she gets smart quick enough to boot him and his red Mustang to the curb. It is the most liberating and powerful feeling she has ever had.

She tells him he is holding her back, and he tells her she's a stone cold bitch and a lousy lay. Claire doesn't mind. In the years to come, as she climbs the corporate ladder, she'll be called much worse. She learns to let the words slide off her like rain on glass.

* * *

Her mother dies the year she graduates college.

Sharron Dearing never slowed down, working two jobs for the small county she'd lived in all her life well into her sixties. Claire thinks it's a sad sort of life, a shadow of the life she might have had if she'd never married and never had children. She doesn't share these thoughts with Karen, who already has two little boys and a husband she rarely sees.

Their mother dies peacefully, in her sleep in the house she bought for her daughters three years after their father left. The doctors aren't quite sure what made her heart stop beating, but when they talk to Claire over the phone, they elude that maybe she'd just worked herself too hard for too long. If their tone is accusatory, she ignores it.

Claire hangs up the phone in her small apartment, the lights off and a summer rain pattering lightly at shuttered windows. Her acceptance letter for her internship at the Masrani Corporation sits stark and mocking on the kitchen counter, and she wraps her arms around herself. She wonders if it's possible to fly to pieces.

She's late to the funeral, missing the eulogy and the casket being lowered, and Karen is silently furious. Her sister has a way of communicating her disappointment without words, knives and flames shooting from her eyes across their mother's dead body. Claire lowers her eyes and thinks of her father for the first time since she hit puberty. She wonders if he knows, hell, if he's even still alive. She wonders if she cares.

Zach is about eight and Gray is still in diapers as he waddles about the house where Karen and Claire had once put on dance routines for their mother and Mrs. Gray, and he is seemingly only interested in drooling all over her designer slacks. Zach keeps to himself, silent and sullen. She can already see that her sister's marriage is fraying at the seams, cracking at the edges of a poorly plastered house, but she knows better than to say anything. Knows better than to get too involved.

Her sister can take care of herself, they'd both learned how to go it alone, how to maintain a semblance of control when the world has gone to shit. They solve their own problems beneath a veneer of sharp wit and icy determination.

Besides, Claire has her own problems, her own life to worry about. There's a hollow burn low in her belly and she thinks it might be guilt or regret, a feeling that bubbles up from the recesses of her soul from time to time. She stays busy, always moving, hoping to outrun it and leave it behind. Sometimes it works, other times she takes a few sleeping pills with a glass of wine and feels nothing at all.

She leaves halfway through the wake, throwing her excuses over her shoulder as she slips out of the home she'd been made in. She doesn't allow herself to cry until she is on the plane back to New York, forehead pressed against cool Plexiglas and she can see the ghost of her reflection against the stars.

* * *

After two years with Masrani, Simon approaches her. They've spoken a few times and Claire finds him pleasant if not a bit… irrational. The type of businessman who takes leaping ventures without judging the distance or resources needed to get there. Considering how profitable he's been at it, she suppose it works for him. Jurassic World had opened the year prior and their company had become a force to truly be reckoned with, and so far it seems to carrying Claire up right along with it.

"I'd like to send you to Isla Nublar," he says, leaning casually against her desk. He topples her pens and she has to resist the urge to set them right again.

"Of course, how long will I be staying?"

It's well after hours and nearly everyone else has gone home. The floor is a sea of dark cubicles, motionless office furniture, and dimmed overhead lights. She can almost hear the ghost like echo of taping keyboards and the shuffle of footsteps with the melody of voices cresting in waves. Though she has an apartment, this feel more like home.

Claire is the head project lead for the marketing division and, thanks largely in part to her, Masrani Corp. has just recently secured a very lucrative deal with Google. They'd had a little champagne at the board meeting and her head is little fuzzy, the edges of her vision muted and almost dream like.

Simon smiles. "I guess that depends on how well you fulfill your assignment."

Claire has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. She's tired and her feet ache from being in heels all day and her patience for egocentric word games is low. "What assignment?"

"I'd like to see how you do as the Park Manager."

Claire fumbles and sends a stack of files sliding to the floor. She doesn't bother to pick them up until well after Simon has left

* * *

Things do not go well. At first.

Her predecessor had been an older gentleman who had about as much an idea how to engage children and young adults as a ninety year old woman. Mr. Hurst hired men and women who knew less than even him and, when it becomes clear these people have no intention of following her lead into the future, she lets them all go. All thirty five of them.

This does not make her popular with those who remain.

She receives angry emails daily for nearly a year. Lives ruined and broken because of her and they are laid out at her feet so that she is forced to lift her nose and step over them. Simon calls in and he frowns at her from the screen on her desk, but he doesn't reprimand her, not quite, not yet. Not when he sees her plans for the gyrospheres, and their projected success.

"This corporation is a family, Ms. Dearing, remember that."

"Of course, sir," she says.

Later that day she fires three more people whose jobs- well, she isn't quite sure what their jobs are and neither are they. One of the men calls her a 'total cunt' on his way out of her office and she gives him her sweetest smile.

She makes no friends and most of her employees avoid her, even those she brings on-board herself- all of them carefully selected and interviewed before being hired. This she doesn't mind, in fact, she avidly encourages it. The more distant she manages to keep herself, the easier it is to see the larger picture, to see her objective, and to cut unnecessary burdens free.

Simon wishes to be everyone's friend and when he visits he certainly is, it's like it's own sort of holiday as he hands out large (often undeserved) bonuses and makes grand speeches about the direction of the park that may or may not boarder on fantasy. But it is her job to keep the park on track, so she sweeps up the mess he leaves when he departs and readjusts his visions and expectations back into reality. Claire thinks he knows how valuable this is because he rarely, if ever, intervenes- other than to remark on the paleness of her skin and the questionable amount of time she puts into her job. He encourages her to take a vacation every now and again, before she works herself to death (like her mother), and she always assures him that she will, after the next quarter, then the next, but she never does.

Claire doesn't think he really expects her to.

A year into her job as the Park Manager and profits double. The board members are singing her praises and she receives a very substantial bonus, which she tucks away and largely forgets. Sometimes she speaks to her sister, but not for long or about anything substantial, another growing distance in her life that grows by the day. She takes sleeping pills every night with a glass of wine and hasn't been on a date (or had sex) in nearly a year. Sometimes, just as she's about to slide into the black emptiness of sleep, she sees her father's face.

* * *

She and Karen speak less and less. Occasionally she'll get an email with pictures of the boys, never of Karen and her husband, and sometimes she'll sit alone in her bed at night, wine in hand, and stare at their faces, so much older than the last time she'd seen them. She wonders what it must feel like to be a mother, she wonders if it is worth it. She wonders if Karen is happy and what _happy_ even means.

She takes her sleeping pills, finishes her wine, and ignores the whispers within the empty parts of herself.

* * *

Claire doesn't believe that she and Adian have any delusions about their relationship. Their lives fit well enough together, both of them busy, both of them dedicated above all to their work at Masrani. He's a capable lover, knows how to move his hands and snap his hips against hers so that she orgasms nearly every time, and if there is a lack of true passion they are both of them are so far beyond it, they don't really notice. Passion falls to the wayside in favor of logic and ease.

When he proposes, it feels more like a business proposition, a business merger, than the joining of two people because of love. It isn't a terribly romantic or imaginative proposal, him kneeling on the spotless floor of her office with a large, gleaming diamond in hand, but something leaps inside her. Something that tastes like desperation. Something that borders on hope. Hope for what, she really can't be sure.

"Yes, I'll marry you," she says with a small, strangely forced smile. Her mind is a confused torrent.

He rises and they kiss lightly to the general applause of the office, filled with people she knows can rarely stand her, but she appreciates the gesture none-the-less. Adian leaves the next morning for New York and every time she looks at the ring on her finger afterward she feels a strange mixture of disgust and yearning.

* * *

Their engagement lasts about three months. She decides to take an unprecedented vacation after the busy season wanes and flies into New York to visit him –as scheduled, she isn't for surprises. Adian had clearly forgotten the date, because he has another woman at his apartment, in his bed. The woman sees her first, a pretty blonde, her face sweaty and flushed as she cuts off mid moan. The blonde shoves at Adian till he turns his head.

Their eyes meet as he slides his dick out of the woman, the skin slick with her, and Claire carefully removes the ring from her finger and sets it on his dresser.

"Don't stop on my account, I think she was close," Claire says and leaves.

He doesn't call and she doesn't really expect him too. If something fragile in her dies, it's too small and tried to be of note. She doesn't even think of her father, not consciously, but her subconscious catalogs the experience away as another incident that confirms theory into fact.

 _Nothing lasts forever, nothing stays._

* * *

A few months into her third year at Jurassic World, they hire a man to help raise a pack of raptors under the supervision of the world's top geneticists and biologists for a government project even Claire isn't privy to. It's all very hush-hush and it makes her uneasy. Very uneasy.

It also really, _really_ pisses her off.

Claire likes being in control, which is hardly a secret -she's heard too many interns whispering 'control freak' and 'ice queen' behind her back to live in ignorance. She doesn't appreciate being kept out of the park's affairs at any level. Her job is to maintain control of the most dangerous (and lucrative) amusement park in the world; people's lives depend on her and, to do her job properly, she needs to remain informed. In recent months she has felt more and more that Dr. Wu and several of the other geneticists have been going over her head and behind her back. It makes her uncomfortable, it makes her worried.

She has no hand in hiring Owen Grady, in fact she has very little to do with the project at all, despite her protests, and the first time she sees him is during the raptor hatching.

She watches from behind the glass, her assistant yammering in her ear, as the large ex-Navy Seal tenderly lifts a wriggling (hideous) lizard into his hands. It's as though a light has just been flicked on in the world somewhere and is now shining through his eyes. He says something to Dr. Wu, who hovers over his shoulder like an anxious mother, but she can't hear it. Strangely mesmerized, she watches as Owen tenderly brushes the pad of his thumb over the Raptors nose and helps it remove bits of shell from its glistening skin.

Something stirs within her, something intent and hungry.

He's a good-looking man; rough around the edges in a charming way, and fit, but not in the way the lawyers and businessmen she meets are. Not the way Adian was. Owen Grady doesn't seem the type to lift weights in a gym and run on a treadmill with air-conditioning blasting in his face while re-runs of Law and Order drone on around him. She suppresses a shiver as she imagines him, briefly, sweaty and shirtless as he strains in the hot sun. Her thighs tense and she purses her lips, annoyed at her own reaction and at him for causing it.

The Raptors hatch one by one, and she watches them (him) intently, wondering, perhaps foolishly, how it might feel to be pet and coddled by such large, rough hands. It's ridiculous, of course, he couldn't be _less_ her type. One look at him is enough to know he isn't the sort to appreciate structure or complicated management procedures, or those whose job is to implement them. She's met enough military men in the past few years to understand the sort of women they like; free spirited, easy going, and younger. She's a woman past thirty with a job that requires constant attention who likes structure and security; two things she'd wanted more than anything as a child and has finally managed to achieve in her adulthood. Things she's not about to give up, no matter how good looking the temptation might be.

When the little ceremony is finished, she doesn't wait around for an introduction. As she turns to leave, he looks over the shoulder of a shorter, dark skinned man, and catches her gaze. She looks pointedly away.

"So the trainer they hired is seriously hot," her assistant, Zara, whispers in the elevator on the way to her next meeting. Zara is about as close to a 'friend' as she has on the island, though it stays mostly superficial. The British woman is very talented at her job and she can ask for little else, doesn't even think to ask for more.

"I hadn't noticed," Claire says in a tone that doesn't invite further conversation. She sees her assistant smile and bite her lip from the corner of her eye and prays to God she isn't blushing.

She makes up her mind to hate him -Owen Grady -as the elevator doors close. If this is a preemptive strike against whatever reaction he might have drawn from her in the lab, she refuses to think on it long enough to acknowledge it.

That night, however, she touches herself to the thought of sweaty tan skin and large calloused fingers, her own soft digits gliding across slickened flesh into aching folds. There's something almost desperate about it, a substantial yearning for something she can't name, but which she's sure she's never had. Something more than flesh on flesh, something that feels remarkably like loneliness echoing through the caverns of her body as they clench and strain with yearning.

When she cums, her orgasm rocking her in fierce and then gentling waves, it's _his_ face, bright and eager, she sees. As she drifts off into sleep, sedated and body humming pleasantly, her sleeping pills still lying on the nightstand, she thinks that will be the end of it.

* * *

Claire's deepest darkest secret is that she likes the petting zoo.

She and Laura, the main supervisor of the attraction, have an unspoken agreement: Laura pretends like she doesn't know that the park manager comes to pet the baby dinosaurs a couple times a month and Claire turns a blind eye to Laura taking an extra week or two of vacation with her kids.

Claire slips in through the main building of the attraction sometime near midnight and Laura is nowhere to be seen. It's late, far later than her usual visits, but she'd needed to get out of her (head) apartment for a little while. Today her office, the entire main building, had seem suffocating.

Not quite comfortable unlocking any of the cages or pens on her own, she squats down and runs her hand over a drowsy Triceratops baby through the fence, feeling the rising crest of its breathing and the scaly warmth of its skin beneath her hand. The creature makes a little huffing, gurgling noise and lifts its nose to nudge her palm, cow-brown eyes blinking up at her sleepily. Charmed, she smiles softly to herself and hums alittle. The night is clear and the moon is high, and she's so wrapped up in petting the little beast and the soft breeze in her ears as it tangles in her hair, she doesn't hear him approach until he's right behind her.

A boot scuffs and she lurches to her feet, heart rattling around in her rib cage like a penned animal.

"Jesus Christ," she sputters and Owen Grady gives her a lopsided grin that's entirely too roguish to be fair.

"You can just call me Owen," he says, hands on his hips. He's dressed in board shorts and a loose shirt that makes a v down his throat, allowing a nice glimpse of golden skin. He's better looking up close and it makes her feel hot beneath the fine linen of her shirt.

She can feel the flush spread up her face and she glares at him. "Very clever. What are you doing here?"

"Laura asked me to check on the place, wasn't feeling well I guess. What are _you_ doing here -ah, well, I guess we've never official met have we?" He looks sheepish and rubs the back of his neck.

They're standing rather close together and she takes a careful step back.

"Claire, Claire Dearing, I'm the operations manager of the park," she says, and braces her hands on the rail of the pen behind her briefly before clasping them before her. His eyes shine in the darkness and they follow her every move. She feels tracked, maybe even hunted, a shiver creeps down her spine and it's not entirely unpleasant.

"Right, saw your face on the company's main web page, just figured it would be kind of creepy to use your name without some sort of introduction." He reminds her of the frat boys she knew in college; confidence bordering on arrogance, a broad competitive streak, and a knack for getting what he wants. She'd hated most of them on principle alone.

"Well, now you have it," she says in a clipped tone, embarrassment settling in. She feels oddly vulnerable, being caught here in the middle of the night, and she does her best to shove the knowledge that she's touched herself thinking about this man she barely knows as deep down in her consciousness as possible. It doesn't work as well as she'd like it too.

"Right," he grins, "Nice to meet you, Claire."

"Likewise, Mr. Grady," she says, trying to remain casual and ignore how flustered he's making her feel by merely… existing.

"Like I said, call me Owen." He shoves his hands in his pockets, completely at ease, apparently.

"Well," she says and pushes away from the fence. "I should really be heading back-"

"You never answered my question, you know."

She's mid-way between him and freedom, she has to look up to meet his eyes despite her heels. A fresh breeze flutters her skirt around her calves, and he smells like motor-oil, sweat, and fresh cut grass.

"What question?" she manages as her heart does a funny flip in her chest.

He arches a brow at her, eyes dancing with amusement. "Why you're here in the middle of the night dressed like you're about to address a room full of overpaid board members petting baby dinos, remember?"

She glances down at her white skirt and top, a gold belt cinched at her waist, then purses her lips at him. "I just… wanted to ensure everything was locked up for the evening."

Owen chuckles, a deep sound that slides through her, down into her stomach, then _lower_. "Yeah, that makes sense, why wouldn't the manager of the entire park come to check that the petting zoo is secure?"

Claire narrows her eyes at him, the sarcasm not lost on her. "I have many responsibilities, I don't overlook any of them."

Another lopsided smile. "You must be very… thorough."

"I take my job very seriously, Mr. Grady," she says, voice dropping an octave lower.

 _What has gotten into me?_

"Something we have in common, then." His smile takes on a new, almost sensual quality that does something strange to the muscles in her thighs and belly. Like they're trying to catch hold of something

"I wonder if it's the only thing," she says with a sudden flare of confidence. She recognizes the look in his eyes and it makes her feel powerful, maybe even a little… sexy. He's looking at her like maybe she's something he'd like to taste, like something he'd like to wrap his tongue around and nibble at with his teeth.

She's flirting and it's inappropriate and unlike her and in this moment, surrounded by baby dinosaurs in the middle of a clear night on an island brimming with tourists and violent monsters, she doesn't care. There is a reckless feeling she's unaccustomed to threatening to overthrow her normally infallible judgment; encouraging her to, just this once, throw caution to the wind and follow her instincts. Looking at him, skin glistening with a light film of sweat, eyes hooded and suggestive in the shadow of his brow, it's tempting, _very_ tempting. It's been too long, much, much too long, since she's been properly touched and fucked and held (maybe she's never had any of it properly), and something about this man she barely knows tells her he'd probably do a damn good job of it.

She shivers a little and his eyes narrow and his pupils darken.

"I wouldn't mind finding out," he says, his body language attentive, draw toward her.

She smiles, letting it glide and settle on her face like silk dragged across skin. "I look forward to it, _Mr. Grady._ "

She holds his gaze for a moment longer, hot and penetrating, then walks past him, their arms just brushing and it leaves a trail of delicious potential branded across her flesh. She can feel his eyes following her like she's a particularly interesting choice of prey, and if her hips sway a little more than usual, she thinks it's well worth the effort.

* * *

 **A/N:  
** This first bit is pretty angsty, don't worry, Owen will lightening things up here and there as we move along. Next chapter should be up soon, just have to organize some bits I've already written and edit them.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Shorter chapter. Starting to think this is going to be longer than three parts... okay, so this is going to be longer than three parts. Hope that isn't too upsetting for anyone.

* * *

Claire manages to almost forget her encounter with the Raptor trainer -mentally chastising herself almost immediately the morning after the incident- until he shows up outside her office two weeks later.

"Ms. Dearing," he drawls, startling her from a massive report for the new Tyrannosaurus exhibit. They want to run a tram through it, allow the guests to watch Lucy (that's what the park employees and animal keepers call her) eat and hunt. It leaves a sticky, faintly sick feeling inside her mouth, like rotten fruit stuck to her tongue. Every year park goers seem interested in more of one thing, and one thing only; violence.

Owen is leaning against the door frame, fingers hooked casually into the belt loops of his dirt stained pants, looking completely edible and masculine and out of place. Looking at him makes her rather warm under the collar. She can see Zara leering and smiling through the glass of her office from the corner of her eye and she purses her lips.

"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Grady?"

He smiles like she's just suggested something inappropriate that he'd really like to take her up on, and steps inside her office. He's fluid and confident, like a predatory feline.

 _No, like a Raptor._

"I hear you're the lady to see about trying to get additional funding."

"I suppose that depends what this funding is for," she replies. "As you know, I am only loosely involved with the Raptor program." That's something of an exaggeration; she knows next to nothing about it. Not that he needs to know that.

"Ah, but I'm not here about the Raptor program, I'm here about the _Stegoceras_ progam." He reaches out and toys with a white, rounded paperweight on her desk. When he sets it back down there is a smear of dirt on it and she frowns.

"I wasn't aware that you were involved with that program." She wants to reach out and clean the brown smudge but she has a sense that he knows what she's thinking, that he's testing her, so she clasps her hands together across her otherwise pristine desk.

"Well, I'm not, not technically, but Simon had me look into some things last time he was here-"

"Ah, I might have guessed," she interrupts and rises from her chair. "Mr. Masrani has a habit of… how to put this precisely -a habit of _over-reaching_."

Owen frowns a little. "What do you mean?"

Claire sighs and resists the urge to press her fingers to her temples and rub, a migraine brewing in the back of her head like a storm just off the coast. "I mean that he sometimes forgets how a business actually runs, or whose job is what, or how much things actually cost. It serves him well sometimes, but a large portion of my job is taking his visions and dreams and forging them in a manner that makes them more realistic "

"You haven't heard my proposition yet," Owen counters, wary now but still smiling, still casually at ease. So at ease, in fact, that it makes her _uneasy._

She's used to people darting out of her way in the halls, used to people avoiding speaking to her unless it's entirely necessary, used to people falling all over themselves to tell her what she wants to hear and avoid irritating her. She's used to being intimidating, and she doesn't think Owen Grady is intimidated by anyone. It's both annoying… and annoyingly attractive. It confuses her and she hates being confused, almost as much as she hates being out of control.

"Very well, what is this proposition that has nothing to do with the job you were actually hired to do?" her tone is clipped, dismissive, and she almost feels bad for it, but she can't help it, all her defenses are up now in a knee-jerk effort to regain control of the muddled traction of her thoughts.

Owen's brows draw together and he says, "They are understaffed, the animals have out grown their enclosure, and there are too many of them now so it's becoming difficult to manage and care for them."

"Mr. Grady, you are aware that the Stegoceras are one of our least popular assets, yes?"

Owen glares. "You are aware, Ms. Dearing, that you're talking about living creatures, yes?"

True irritation flashes. "Clark Jennings, the head of that division, has mentioned previously that a reduction of the attraction size may be necessary, which we will probably implement sometime later this year."

"You mean you're going to kill them," he snaps.

Claire walks toward him, heels clicking sharply on the tile of her office floor, and wonders what, precisely, he thinks her job is. Does he, like so many before him, assume she's just another pretty face that will roll over and cater to whatever he wants? He is clearly the sort of man who has been disenchanted with authority and management before, likely from years of having some Navy officer screaming in his face, but she has little tolerance for it.

"It's something that I considered, yes, but –not that it is truly any of your business- they will be released into the jungles outside of the park."

"Simon thinks that if we were to expand the exhibit-"

"Do you know what people come here to see, Mr. Grady?"

He half sneers at her, eyes alight.

"They come to see teeth, and claws, and blood. They want bigger and bader and meaner. Every time we open a new exhibit park attendance nearly doubles, and if people get to watch something die, it even _triples_. I don't have to like it and neither do you, but it's the truth."

"Why do you go visit the petting zoo, Claire?" he asks and the question is so abrupt and unexpected, she flounders for a moment.

"W-what do you mean?"

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. She glances outside her office windows and see's that several people in the adjoining rooms are looking at them. She flushes and takes a step back, trying not to feel like she's giving ground in a battle of wits.

"I _mean_ , why is that you go there in the middle of the night to pet baby triceratops," he repeats loudly and she shushes him fiercely.

"I don't know what that has to do with anything-"

"I think it has to do with everything, _Claire_ ," he says more quietly.

She glares at him, furious that he's managed to get under her skin in such a short amount of time. Furious that's she's so far been entirely unable to stop him. He matches her gaze for a long moment before his shoulders visibly relax, and that easy, confident smirk works it's way back onto his face.

"You don't have to listen to what I have to say, I don't blame you, but I think you should visit the Stegoceras sometime, maybe even come down to the Raptor enclosure."

"Why would I need to visit the Raptor enclosure?"

He smiles at her, moving backwards out the door. "Partially because I think it would be good for you, and partially because I'm trying to impress you." He winks, which makes her bristle with embarrassment. "Have a good day, Ms. Dearing."

He's down the hall before she can formulate a response. Her assistant rushes in the moment the elevator doors close.

"You're not sleeping with him are you?" she demands without hesitation.

Claire huffs for a moment with indignation and residual exasperation before saying, "No, I am definitely not sleeping with that infuriating asshole."

Her assistant smiles like a cat who's just been handed a large bowl of cream. "Good."

* * *

"Claire, I need a favor," Karen says over the phone, sounding tired and more than a little downtrodden.

Claire sets down the coffee she'd been about to sip as a feeling of dread leaks into her empty stomach. In their entire lives, Claire can't remember her older sister having ever asked her for a favor. _Ever_.

It's early, the sun a prickling idea on the horizon, and she's still in her nightgown. She tugs her bathrobe closer, suddenly chilled.

"I-Is everything alright?"

"I need, well, I was hoping that- God, this is going to sound stupid." Karen sounds on the brink of tears, her voice trembling and irregular. Claire swallows thickly.

"Better just to say it I guess," Karen inhales sharply. "Can the boys come visit you? Maybe stay out there for a bit?"

Whatever Claire is been expecting, it isn't this. She's momentarily at a loss for words.

"Right it's a stupid idea. I'm sorry I asked-" Karen is rushing on, bordering on frantic.

"Of course," Claire finds herself saying without really consciously deciding to speak. "Of course they can come visit."

There is a long silence, then, "Are you sure, Claire?" Karen can't quite hide the desperate hope in her voice, though Claire can tell she is trying.

She takes a deep breath, silencing the voices in her head suddenly clamoring for her attention, screaming at her what a terrible, _terrible_ , idea this is.

"Y-yeah, I'm sure. I'd love to have them, for as long as you need."

Karen exhales. "Thank you Claire. Just- well, thank you. I'll call tomorrow and we can hash out the details."

"Sounds good," Claire says and they hang up. She should have asked what was happening, what had rattled her usually infallible sister. But she didn't, partially because that's a gap they haven't bridged since they were children and partially because she's pretty sure she already knows the reason.

Her heart aches and she drinks her coffee as she tries to convince herself that taking care of two teenage boys will be easy. She runs a park filled with prehistoric monsters, how hard can two pubescent boys be?

* * *

Three days later she's on a video call with Simon.

"How are the T-Rex modifications coming along?" he asks. He is wearing casual, loose linen clothing in his office which happens to looks like a high-end spa. It makes Claire's stomach tighten with jealousy.

"Things are going well. Construction is underway and I believe we will stay under budget."

Simon nods and sips his tea, relaxed, composed, unhurried. Claire's back and feet ache and she hasn't eaten since that morning because she'd been bombarded by one phone call after another.

"I wanted to ask you something, Ms. Dearing."

"Of course, sir," she says politely.

"Where do you see yourself in the future?"

There's a stab of anxiety; it's a pretty loaded question coming from her boss. "Well, I see myself helping you to maintain the greatest theme park in the world, sir."

He smiles and it's a tad indulgent. "That's lovely of course, but where do you see _yourself_. In your personal life. I was sorry to hear that your engagement was called off."

Claire let a breath out through her hadn't thought Simon even knew of her engagement; it hadn't lasted long enough to make a formal announcment. "I-I suppose I hadn't really thought of it, sir. I love my job and I haven't well, met anyone that seems to share my passions or goals." She's mostly talking out of her ass at this point; Claire has no real idea what she's looking for in men, which probably explains why all her relationships have floundered.

"You're a smart, driven, ambitious woman, Ms. Dearing. I understand the pressure you must be under, but I'm concerned that you do not make enough time for yourself, that you're too deeply imbedded in this company to distance yourself from it. To see the broader picture."

Again, that sense of anxiety. Was he going to fire her for working too hard? It certainly seemed like something Simon might do.

"Sir, if you feel my performance has been less than adequate-"

"I'm just concerned you are going to push yourself too far and snap. I need you, Ms. Dearing, and you are of no use to me overburdened or worked into an early grave."

 _Like your mother_ , a voice whispers and she swallows before twisting a smile onto her face.

"Well sir, now that you mention it, my two nephews are coming for an extended stay."

Simon's face lit with surprise. "That's wonderful news! I think it could be very good for you, Ms. Dearing. Children are wonderful, my own are the light of my life."

Claire resists the urge to roll her eyes. "I haven't seen my nephews in a few years," _more like seven_ , "and I'm excited to spend time with them."

In truth she is terrified and had been seconds away from taking back her offer when Karen had called her back to work out the details of their travel. Only the naked relief in her sister's voice had held her at bay. The boys would be arriving in two days and would be staying... well, that part had been glossed over. They were on their summer break from school and Claire has the sneaking, and horrifying, suspicion they might spend the entirety of it with her.

"Wonderful, be sure to take a few days off of course, give them the grand tour and please, for the love of God, _relax_. I promise it won't kill you."

She offers a wan smile. "Of course, sir."

"I will speak to you tomorrow during the board meeting," Simon says and sips his tea.

"Of course, sir, have a good evening."

"Remember what I said, Ms. Dearing. _Relax_."

Claire sits quietly at her desk for a moment as the screen goes blank. It's late, only a few lights on in the office around her. She deflates into herself.

She'd meant to bring up with the Stegoceras, to discuss their options. Her discussion with Owen had made her do some... thinking. Forced her to be a little introspective, not that she appreciated it at _all_ , but the feeling their discussion had left behind was hard to ignore. There's something about the park that she's felt for sometime has being lost, a level of integrity and balance. Something beyond numbers on a screen. Something Owen Grady seems to represent.

"Fuck," she mutters to the paper weight that still bears a smear of dirt. "What am I doing?"


End file.
